Chinese scientists are trying to develop genetically modified rice with special qualities to contain some key components in human blood, which will eventually replace blood donation one day, thus solving the problem of blood use in hospitals once and for all. A special protein can be extracted from this genetically modified rice, which contains human genes. These proteins can be used in the clinical treatment of patients with burns or excessive blood loss in hospitals.
The emergence of this technology is expected to completely change the problem of insufficient blood supply in hospitals
Scientists who developed this rice variety believe that this product will eventually become a safe substitute for human blood products, and will solve the situation of hospital blood tension caused by insufficient blood donation once and for all. Risk of contracting diseases such as AIDS or hepatitis due to blood.
As far as the current situation in the UK is concerned, the country needs about 1.6 million pints (about 910,000 liters) of blood per year, but the country ’s public participation in unpaid blood donation accounts for only 4% of the total number of people who can donate blood.
After medical institutions collect blood donated by people, the blood is generally centrifuged to obtain three different components: red blood cells, platelets that help human blood clot, and plasma. The main component of plasma is a protein called "human serum albumin". These components can be used in medical clinics for different purposes of rescue treatment. By modifying the rice genes, the researchers claimed that human serum albumin could be mass-produced. This eliminates the need for people to donate blood.
Human serum albumin is the protein with the highest content in human blood. It takes on important physiological functions, including transporting hormones and minerals to all parts of the body, removing toxic substances from the blood and helping to maintain normal blood pressure.
Dr. Yang Daichang, Wuhan University, is the chief scientist of this research. He said: "Human serum albumin is a very important protein. It is estimated that the global demand is more than 500 tons per year. And the current production of this substance must rely on the human body. Plasma collection. Due to the limited supply, the supply has been in short supply. At the same time, the public has also expressed a higher degree of concern about the safety of blood products, especially blood products have the potential risk of spreading AIDS or other diseases. The synthetic human serum albumin is absolutely safe, not only solves the problem of insufficient supply, but also avoids the risk of infectious diseases. "
Dr. Yang Daichang and his colleagues have developed a technology that uses bacterial action to import gene fragments into Asian rice genes, thereby transforming rice itself into a gene production plant that can continuously produce human serum that is exactly the same as the human body. albumin.
Their related papers have been published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences. The paper shows that the scientific research team has successfully implanted DNA, and the final product is the same as that in the human body, both chemically and physically.
With the success of the experiment, they began to gradually try to increase the content of human serum albumin in transgenic rice. Now they can already make 10% of the soluble protein components in rice become human serum albumin.
The release of this news is only a few months before the news that Chinese scientists announced the successful development of genetically modified cows. At that time, Chinese scientists announced that they had successfully achieved the production of 300 cows with the same quality as human milk. The move caused global attention, and animal rights defenders also protested.
And this recent work on genetically modified rice is very likely to trigger a new round of more serious protests and objections from people and groups opposed to genetically modified rice. Many people are skeptical about the safety of genetically modified foods, and many people are uneasy about combining human genes with other species ’genetic forms.
However, Dr. Yang Daichang claimed that the human serum albumin synthesized by rice is completely consistent with such substances naturally produced by the human body. Experiments conducted on mice have also shown that this synthetic product does not produce any adverse reactions. They also used this synthetic protein to treat mice with liver cirrhosis, and the results showed that it was effective in reducing symptoms, which is consistent with the efficacy of human serum albumin naturally produced in the body.
Dr. Yang Daichang also hopes to use transgenic rice to produce more human protein varieties, such as hemoglobin. It is what makes blood donation appear red, and is responsible for transferring oxygen to all parts of the body, and it is also an important part of the human immune system: an important component of the human immunoglobulin. Dr. Yang and his colleagues have applied for a patent. From this patent, it can be seen that he is preparing to develop a series of technologies to realize the synthesis of more types of proteins from rice and the products obtained For medical use. At the same time, they are also developing a genetically modified technology that allows rice to produce insulin itself, which is a key drug for the treatment of diabetes.
Gavin Murphy is a cardiologist at the Royal Hospital of Bristol, UK, and is a senior lecturer professor at the University of Bristol, specializing in human blood transfusion research. His evaluation of this technology is "it may cause a complete revolution in the blood supply system." He said: "This is an epoch-making achievement, but at present they are only experimenting on mice. And the real test of it It is to prove that it is indeed safe for human body and can be effectively purified and disinfected. If it is finally successful, then we will be able to grow this kind of rice in the field and carry out a huge amount of human blood protein Produce. This will solve the problem of insufficient blood volume facing the hospitals once and for all. "
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